Britt conductor visits music students

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Grants Pass High School music students got to sit down one-on-one with Britt Festival Orchestra’s own Teddy Abrams Wednesday.

Abrams, the renowned Britt Festival Orchestra conductor and music director, was visiting high schools across the Rogue Valley.

“There is nothing as important as music education,” Abrams said. “Very few people stop listening to music the day they leave high school, yet we treat music education a lot of times like it’s not as important as other subjects.”

Abrams said he hopes visits like these can make a connection with the next generation of musicians, a feeling he’s familiar with.

“That was a world that I felt like I belonged in. So when I go and see that happening it gives me so much satisfaction, it’s so inspiring. You just never know what can happen to inspire somebody or even change their lives, at least their days.”

He said it’s all in an effort to replenish and rebuild relationships from the ground up, and hopes other artists will do the same.

“It would change the world. Artists have a requirement to serve, and this is our way of doing that and giving back.

In addition to his work with Britt, Abrams is the music director of the Louisville Orchestra.

Nicole Costantino is a reporter and weather forecaster for NBC5 News. She comes to us from Phoenix, Arizona where she graduated from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She also received a minor in Meteorology.

Before coming to NBC5 News Nicole was an anchor, weathercaster and reporter at KAET in Phoenix, AZ. In college, she interned for CBS Evening News in New York City and the NBC4 Investigative Team in Los Angeles.

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